Is it just me or does it seem like there aren't awesome underground films being made anymore? Maybe I'm just out of touch and don't ever hear about them...but I feel like the queer/riot grrrl/punk/weirdos of the 90's made awesome no budget films that captured life in those scenes. For instance, I saw Sarah Jacobson speak about Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore in a tiny theater in Ohio when she toured it in the 90s. That was probably the first time I realized that girls could make movies and that you didn't have to be in Hollywood to make movies and that queers, punks and weirdos could hang out and listen to Heavens to Betsy while making movies. It was amazing and I'm really glad I got to be there. What do we have like that now? The internet is supposed to connect us to anything in the world that we're interested in, but I still feel like the community of people making art in the queercore and riot grrrl scenes were more connected than we could ever be. I think that there was something special about trading tapes and zines and touring with your projects that has been mostly lost. It's my dream to have some sort of "homo a gogo on wheels" touring queer/weirdo fest so kids can once again cram into some tiny theater in Ohio or wherever to see this kind of stuff in person and hear people speak about their work and see bands play live and make friends IRL.
But until the boy/girl revolution comes again, enjoy these trailers for some movies you might not ever get to see* and some
music from them (or related).
*If anybody has any of these, I'd really love a copy!
The Hidden Cameras - Lollipop (Live)
Fifth Column - Ghost Of A Buffalo
Heavens To Betsy - My Secret (demo)
4 comments:
Hi--check out the website for the Sarah Jacobson Film Grant -- sjfilmgrant.wordpress.com
we will have dvds for sale soon!
I'm the guy who made the "I Was a Teenage Serial Killer" fan trailer, by the way. (Damn, I'm an awful narrator!)
I have both of Sarah Jacobson's films, along with some other stuff she made, on a 2 DVD-R set that I bought from her mom last June via mail order. She posted the information for ordering the DVDs on IMDb:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117001/board/nest/43496421
(look at the post by "ruthe22-1")
Anyway, while I wasn't really around for/aware of the Don't be Gay Nineties' queercore and Riot Grrrl scenes, I definitely feel the same way as you after reading old zines, watching underground movies from the 90s (Sarah Jacobson, mostly), and listening to old Riot Grrrl/queercore albums, and subsequently returning to the present and looking around for cool stuff. I've been wondering the same things about what the hell happened to queercore/Riot Grrrl/cool weirdoes in general.
To be honest, it seems that underground art/zines/music in general has died since that time. I mean, underground film has become "dunking your bloody expensive 16mm stock in the ocean at great cost and with little transgressive effect", zines have become rather boring e-zines and webzines, and hipsters have taken over most of indie rock. It's uncool to genuinely care about anything. It's a pathetic, defeatist attitude.
I happen to live in Maryland, and am working on a no-budget, (hopefully) Super 8mm, queercore dark comedy script called "Death by Fetzy" that's basically about "bashing back". Hopefully, people will enjoy it and be inspired to make their own movies, zines, and music, because, to create a corollary to one of Sarah Jacobson's quotes about self-distribution, if you don't promote your views, no one will.
I'm also planning out a short experimental film (probably on 16mm) that examines queer issues purely through imagery and text snippets. I hope to keep it unpretentious. If it does end up seeming pretentious, I'll place the negative in some dumpster outside a Chinese restaurant (why Chinese? Because the toxic waste that is sold as "Chinese food" in the United States would aid the decomposition of the film stock).
In the District of Columbia, there seems to be no local queercore scene at all, although there are people interested (they're just too fuckin' lazy to try DIY). I don't know of any currently existing D.C. zine distros, either.
In Baltimore, there is one alternative/underground book/zine store (Atomic Books, in Hampden) that, if I recall correctly, doesn't sell any queer stuff aside from back issues of some discontinued Degrassi-esque underground comic. There is also a "queer art rock power trio," The Degenerettes, that I suppose is queercore because all three members are transwomen, but they don't have any songs about queer issues (but their music is pretty good).
~ Eric Johns
Eric,
I really liked the trailer you made and am looking forward to the films you are making... definitely send us the trailers or whatever when you are finished!
It's weird that with such widespread distribution of information via the internet that it's still hard to find cool stuff...but it is out there! I do think there was more of a community with mail order and stuff like that, but hopefully we can (re)build those communities online. My hope for this blog is that we can be a part of that.
There is, however, something to be said about having people around that you can interact with and holding zines and stuff like that in your hands. Hopefully you will be able to find more stuff in your area...or maybe you could even start something! But if you are looking for zines specifically check out The Queer Zine Archive Project, they have tons of great stuff and links to other distros and stuff like that. Also if you are looking for music, check out soulponies.com for tons of queercore music new and old!
Thanks for reading the blog and keep us posted on your films and stuff! xo
Thanks for posting about Sarah Jacobson. After a little more research, I found that the Fales Collection of NYU's library has her papers. It's the same collection that acquired Kathleen Hanna's papers (which you blogged about too). Pretty awesome, right? I'm excited to dig through her papers, and when they get KH's up on the website, those too.
http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/fales/jacobson.html
xo
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